


Serendipity

by Rori_Teagan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 20:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3302471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rori_Teagan/pseuds/Rori_Teagan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t reach Serendib by plotting a course for it. You have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings. ~ John Barth (The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor)</p><p>Somewhat epilogue compliant - Harry's boys start the story as toddlers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serendipity

 Harry watched the cup bounce down the hall and come to a rest with a clank at his feet.

Al on his hip babbling to himself in baby-talk, Harry bent to retrieve it. Which just went to prove how comfortable he was becoming with this parenting stuff. Just a year ago with James, he would have never attempted to bend while holding his son, for fear of dropping him.

Al burbled as they rose, little tongue moving fast around the two fingers he’d stuck in his toothless mouth. Drool dripped from his chin onto Harry’s jumper in a steady slimy river. Their pediatric mediwizard insisted all the drool was a sign of teeth on the way. Harry had his doubts; the poor kid had been drooling like a tap since he was four months old and there still wasn’t a suspect of a singular tooth in that gum-filled mouth of his. He was nothing at all like his brother. James did everything early and fast: first teeth at eight months, first words at nine months, first step at ten. Albus was fifteen months now and he’d just begun taking those first wobbly stumbles across their living room floor, was completely happy with grunts and burbles, and as toothless as ever.

It was worrisome. Harry was giving it two more months and then they were going to see a specialist, whatever Ginny or Molly said.

A plate, this time, sailed across the hall, thudding ominously into the wall centimeters from Harry’s head. With a frown, he tucked Al close to his chest warily. The little boy hummed and kicked his legs, oblivious.

 

More thumps sounded from the general vicinity of the kitchen and Harry’s frown deepened.

Carefully, he stuck Al in the bumble-bee bouncer that they’d used on his brother for exactly one day before James had learned the secrets of climbing out. Albus Severus gave his father a wide toothless smile, a string of drool hanging from his full bottom lip, and kick - kicked his little fat legs.

“Stay here, happy boy, I’ll be right back.” Harry pressed a swift kiss to the toddler’s forehead, ruffling the wild black curls on his way up. Then he was off to investigate the thumps and flying cookery coming from the kitchen.

He found Ginny there, in the middle of chaos, the entire kitchen torn apart. And if they hadn’t warded all the plates and glassware shatter-proof after that one scare last year with James and the exploding china, then it would have been a dangerous mess.

It took him a few moments to realize Ginny wasn’t just at the center of the uproar, but the cause as well.

“Ginny, what in the world is going on?” He asked once his tongue unstuck enough to allow words to pass.

When she turned to him and he could see that the glistening on her cheeks was not in fact illusions of light, but instead tears…his first thought was for the children.

But Jamie was upstairs fast asleep; he’d put him down not fifteen minutes before, and the boy never slept shorter than five hours at a time no matter what else was going on. Albus was in the other room, content in his bumble-bee bouncer. And little Lily was snug in her mother’s womb. Oh god, was it Lily?

“Ginny, what’s wrong? Is it the baby?”

She looked okay. She didn’t look in pain. It was a hard pregnancy but all the mediwizards insisted that with some bed-rest and limited magic use, both Ginny and the baby would be fine.

Ginny was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling in great heaves, her rounded belly moving with it. He moved to her automatically, one hand going for her stomach. Ginny sprang away before he could touch her, not nearly as limber as she used to be but still fairly quickly.

“You bastard,” she growled. “You disgusting bastard!”

Harry’s tongue re-stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he blinked behind his glasses.

“How could you do this to us?” Ginny launched another missile, this time at Harry’s chest. He was lucky that it was just a newspaper because he was too stunned to dodge.

The paper slapped against him and fell to the floor, landing face up in the mess she’d made of their kitchen.

The caption “Savior of the Wizarding World caught in Homo-erotic Love Affair!!” glared at him in bold screaming capitals. Underneath, a miniature Harry Potter was tangled around a miniature Zacharias Smith, both doing their level best to swallow the other’s tongue, Zacharias’ hands indecently shoved down the back of Harry’s trousers.

Harry winced, squatting to retrieve the paper. The closer he got the busier Zarcharias’ hands became, fumbling eagerly to remove the layers of material between them. “No,” Harry whispered, first to himself and then louder for his wife. “No, Ginny. This isn’t what it looks like.”

She scoffed, hands fisted at her sides.

“I mean, yes, it is what it looks like, clearly it is.” Zacharias had just stuck his leg between Harry’s own , and Harry’s head had thumped backwards in response so that his throat was bared to the other boy’s hungry mouth. Christ! This was positively pornographic. Could they actually print this shit?

“It’s just not recent,” Harry went on. “This was sixth year, before us, before everything. Look at me, I’m practically a kid here. I haven’t seen Zacharias in years, and I’ve never cheated on you, I swear!”

“So you admit it then,” her voice wobbled slightly on the last syllable, and she opened her fists to slap flat palms against her thighs. “You actually admit it. You,” her lips twisted in disgust, “you actually admit you had it off with that disgusting nancy-boy. It’s enough to make me sick up.”

Harry stood, feeling winded.

Ginny’s lower lip wobbled, and tears ran silently down her face, but her eyes were hard and unforgiving. “I can’t even look at you right now.”

Harry followed her helplessly as she made her way to the next room, belly swaying gently as she walked in that peculiar side–to-side strut heavily pregnant woman got.

This wasn’t happening.

“We’re staying at my mother’s,” she announced without turning around. “Jamie, Al, and I.”

Albus watched her, considering, while sucking on two little fingers, as she attempted to pick him up without bending at the waist. Harry numbly lifted the boy for her as he’d been doing ever since Lily had begun getting big, but couldn’t make his hands release from around his son’s tiny body when she reached for him.

“Give him to me, Harry,” Ginny demanded. There was a bit of the indignant schoolgirl still in her voice and Harry remembered that when Gin was a schoolgirl, she used to hex people when they didn’t do what she wanted. If she were allowed to use a wand, Harry didn’t doubt that he would have had immediate evidence that that too remained.

“We’re leaving,” she said. “You can either give him to me or I can floo one of my brothers, but we’re leaving either way.”

Harry’s brain stuttered on this sentence, unable to process what those words meant pressed all together like that. Knowing they were a threat but unable to grasp why one of Ginny’s brothers should be threatening to him. They were his brothers, as well, now. They were –

This wasn’t happening. She had given up reaching for the child and was now moving towards their fireplace. Al put his little arms around his fathers neck, watching the goings-on curiously. If he allowed this to become a drama, Al wouldn’t be intrigued anymore, he was going to be frightened.

The day James was born, he’d promised himself he’d do whatever it took to keep his children from living one day of fear.

“Wait, Ginny.” His wife stopped immediately, as if she knew what he was going to say. “I’ll go, okay? I’ll go, you stay here. You’re not supposed to travel by Floo for a while and you know you can’t Apparate. So I’ll go.”

It broke his heart handing his son over, but Al didn’t cry once. And that was the important thing.

This …this wasn’t permanent.

 

***+++***

 

“I just don’t understand. Any of this – I don’t-” Harry broke off.

Hermione stroked his arm soothingly, soft palms gliding against the full length of one forearm. Her expression was warm and sympathetic…but not the least bit surprised.

“I never cheated on her. You have to believe me, Hermione.” It was important that she understood this; Harry was sure at that moment that nothing would ever be more important than Hermione understanding the fact that he’d never cheat on Ginny. He’d sooner rip out his own heart and use it as a base in a love potion.

“I do, Harry. I do, I know you would never.”

And then the moment was fading and Hermione was agreeing with him, and he was still spending the nights at his best friends’ place while his family might have well been on the other side of the world. Nothing had changed.

“Then why – why is this happening?”

“I don’t think it’s about being faithful, or honest, or the like. It’s - ” Hermione trailed off, hesitatingly. Her brow crinkled a little, right between the bridge of her nose and her forehead, in that way she had when she was concentrating, weighing her words and deciding just how much she wanted to reveal.

“Homosexual relations aren’t as readily received in this world as it is in the Muggle. Especially with the more… traditional families. Which in their own way, despite their embracing of all things Muggle, the Weasleys are.”

Harry sighed and slid further down into his chair, thinking of Uncle Vernon and the poofs are perverting the world, Petunia. There used to be a time they’d be too shamed to show their faces in front of decent folk and waiting for someone to object, anyone, but all the adults were nodding their heads, twisting their mouths in sneers, even the ones who couldn’t stand Uncle Vernon for more than an abrupt wave and brief hullo.

“They aren’t accepted in the Muggle world, Hermione.”

She gave him a sad sort of smile that said loudly without words, ‘you see what I mean then.’

Harry shook his head forcefully. No. Ginny wasn’t like that. His beautiful, courageous, brilliant, kind wife wasn’t like that.

“Harry, think about all the gay men you know. How many of them are in relationships?”

“I don’t know any gay men, other than Smith, but that was ages ago and probably more experimentation than orientation.”

“Yes, you do. What about Dumbledore?”

In Harry’s defense, it’d been a long day, his wife had just left him for an indefinite length of time, and Dumbledore had always appeared sexless in Harry’s thoughts, so the fact he didn’t catch on right away could be forgiven. “What about Dumbledore?”

Hermione stared at him curiously, as if she’d never met a more genuine idiot before. “He was gay, Harry.”

“No he wasn’t, he--- he was just too old for relationships.”

Now it was, ‘I’ve never met such a fascinatingly slow human being in my entire life.’

“Okay. What about Snape?”

“Professor Snape. You’re joking.” He took a minute to wrap his brain around the concept of Snape and Sex. Snape and Gay Sex.

“I just…figured…no one wanted him. I mean, who would? He’s an arse. Who detests people.” With greasy hair, a rather prominent nose, a bitter, sullen disposition, and a back-up plan for every eventuality except his final and most fatal.  

“Well. He was,” Hermione insisted, lips curled into a moue of displeasure with the expression that she’d cultivated as a child for such occasions where if you don’t believe me, you’re a right idiot needed to be communicated. “And it wasn’t his disposition that kept him from dating.”

He thought about that, and he thought about his sons. James and the way he’d pretend to be cranky, little brows drawing together, little lip pushed out in a fake pout, only to wiggle and break into smiles, full-bellied giggles, when Harry blew kisses under his chubby little chin. Al and the way he could watch you for hours, his mother’s determination on Harry’s own face. And he thought about Ginny, and the way she’d known she’d wanted him since she was ten years old, and how he’d discovered her nearly six years later and hadn’t regretted a single moment since. And how Zacharias didn’t rate, didn’t begin to weigh a fraction of merit when it came to them: three of the dozen most important people in his life.

“All my life I’ve always wanted a family. My children, Ginny, they mean the world to me. I’d give up anything, sacrifice anything for them, Hermione.”

Hermione looked at him with sad brown eyes, and said softly, “Including the truth? Including yourself?”

Without hesitation, gaze unwavering. “Yes. Yes.”

“Including happiness?”

“I don’t want anyone but her; it doesn’t matter if I’m a hundred percent heterosexual or bent a bit to the left. There’s only Ginny for me, no one else.”

“But Harry, does she want you,” Hermione asked gently, “or does she want some make-believe fantasy version of yourself?”

“I love her.”

“Goethe once wrote, ‘To be loved for what one is, is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him, their own selves, their version of him.’ But I don’t believe that, Harry. I refuse to believe that. We’re meant for better, and there can’t be true love without acceptance.”

“Hermione, I love her,” he repeated. And now it was the most important thing he’d ever done, saying these words, having her believe them, “I’d be anything she wanted.”

 

***+++***

He didn’t see his family again for two weeks. Two long miserable weeks in which he slept on a camp-bed, ignored the fierce whispers between his two best friends, pretended he didn’t see the pitying glances Hermione sent his way, or the genuine befuddlement in Ron’s measuring stare, and he thought…

 

He hadn’t been prepared for any of this. Not as a lonely eleven-year-old granted all his wishes but one with a letter swept in with the daily post. Not as a thirteen-year-old so focused on being everything everyone expected that he hadn’t had a moment of thought for whether it was worth risking everything he valued. Not as a seventeen-year-old, tired and heart-heavy, so desperate for an end that he’d been willing to give his life, so ready that he hadn’t time or inclination to consider dreams and happy endings.

He hadn’t been prepared for this at all. Finally being given the one thing he’d ever wanted only to have it taken away again.

He didn’t know what to do now.

He’d never sat well with inaction. Even with Voldemort there were Horcruxes to find, things weren’t hopeless when you were moving in a direction even if it was opposite to where you wanted to be.

Now...He didn’t know what to do.

After the first announcement, each following paper came thick with innuendo. Harry Potter’s Homoerotic Love Affair, they blared. Fallen from grace, they bleated, a hero’s downward spiral. And Harry’s personal favorite, the classy: The Boy Who Flamed.

They hadn’t yet identified Zacharias as the other party. Harry wasn’t sure if he should feel grateful or bitter.

He didn’t care what the rest of the world said, he’d dealt with their ostracism before with a decade less experience. And it wasn’t like there hadn’t been others, before and after. It wasn’t Smith’s fault; he didn’t deserve to be part of this.

But Smith still had his life, didn’t he?

 

****+++****

“Mister Potter, sir?”

Stares and whispers. His first foray back into the outside world since the picture that had started it all, and that was the extent of it. None were so brave to utter to his face what they were saying behind his back, so it came as some surprise when he was addressed by a young man in a nervous sort of tone.

Harry looked up from his selections, hand hovering over Mathilda Maruse’s Whispers of the Heart. Ginny loved poetry, she loved romance, and the idea of it, and all it entailed. They’d never had much of either during their courtship. He’d say he was too young to have known better, or that he’d been preoccupied with the war, and those would both be true. But they’d also be excuses. And now it might be too late to even matter.

The young man shifted nervously, the careful smile that twitched the corner of his mouth slightly up slipping off altogether. “Hello,” he said, hands clasped knuckle-white hard in front of him. “My name is Adrian Cornpike, you don’t know me but I’ve…I’ve heard a lot … about you. And I just wanted to say---” here he took a breath, a shallow little fluttering of air that jolted his slight chest. His nose was a bit too long for his face, and his nostrils flared wide with some strong emotion.

Harry wondered what he would do if the boy, for he could hardly be any older than his late teens, spat upon him. It never happened before, but before he’d only been a batty alarmist and possible dark lord in the training. Now they knew he enjoyed the sexual company of other males.      

In one great big breath, the boy’s thin lips pursed, and pushed out: “Thank you.”

Harry stood dumbly, shoulders and hips already aligned to dodge.

Dam burst, the words came flooding out the boy’s mouth. His cheeks turned pink as he spoke, forehead flushing as well. “I...just… thank you. I’ve been going through a similar…well, I guess I can’t really compare it, you’re Harry Potter, but I know…I know what it’s like to… My friend, my b—my boyfriend, we’re both from traditional families. You know the sort, family above everything, divorces are unacceptable, marriage is a must, being gay is unfathomable and disgusting, and the like. I just…you’re an inspiration. You have so much to lose, and just knowing you don’t…that one person in the world doesn’t hate me for who I love…I….thank you.”

As the sunlight reflected off the tears standing in his eyes but refusing to spill, Harry saw Ginny’s shade of bright brown in the boy’s own soft hazel. Her determination in his solid stance despite clenched hands and wonky voice.

One final breath, and the boy gave a final crooked little smile and was off.

And Harry stood there, hand still hovering over Mathilda Maruse.

He hadn’t denied anything in the papers not because he was taking a stand, but instead because he hadn’t cared what they were saying. The only people who mattered already knew.

He hadn't even cared if there were others who would.

***+++***

 

It was two weeks before he saw his family again. Two weeks since he’d last heard James demand “Pick me up, Daddy!” or Al burble in that sweet little nonsense language he had…

Or felt Ginny’s warm body in his arms, caressed her swollen stomach and felt their daughter kick. Two long weeks to think and think and panic until fear was again a constant state of emotion.

The only Weasley Harry had even seen in the past two weeks was Ron. Hermione didn’t count, she still thought like a Granger. And Rose was too little to count for anything but as reminder of his own children.

He didn’t…he didn’t even know what he was going to tell Teddy. The boy was ten years old, and bright like both his parents before him, he’d know what was going on. But how was Harry going to explain to him the how of it when he didn’t understand himself?

He was feeling quite miserable when Ron came in to deliver Ginny’s message. She wanted to meet with him, speak to him, see if there was anything left to work out. Ron looked bashful as he said it, reserved and so sorry it hurt to watch, in a way he hadn’t since he’d entered his twenties.

“Look, Harry, I can’t say I understand…” Ron’s brows crinkled, and his hands turned palm side up helplessly. “If I’m being honest, I think kissing another man is a bit …” he trailed off, the expression on his face simultaneously disgusted and bewildered. “…much less the rest of it...But I don’t think that makes you horrible. So I can’t say I understand where Gin’s coming from either. Except that …sometimes it’s hard when you have one impression in mind about a person and they snatch that away only to hand back something completely opposite. It’s enough to throw you off, and maybe even make you feel a bit betrayed.”

Harry thought about that, and thought that there was nothing Ginny could do to make him not love her. But he couldn’t imagine her doing anything to make him have to either. And maybe that was the point.

“I wonder what my father would have thought.” He swallowed hard, rubbed his nose briskly with the back of an index finger. “Or mum. How proud would I make them now,” he laughed softly though nothing about him held on to humor.

“They might have understood,” Ron said thoughtfully. “There’s often a biological tie between er... occurrences of …homosexuality. Like maybe not your dad, but an uncle somewhere, or aunt, I guess. Were.. er.. gay and the like. The same applies for bisexuality too, I think. So probably someone in your family liked both sides buttered same as you.”

At Harry’s clear look of disbelief, he shrugged a little.

“Hermione’s been trying to help me understand.” Ron flashed a small smile. “You know how she nags on.”

Ron patted him on the shoulder twice, the heavy pressure of his palm reassuring as it lay there. “Don’t worry too much, family’s everything, Harry. You know that better than any of us. Ginny’s not going to throw it all away over something like this.”

 

***+++***

 

Ginevra Potter was a brilliant, beautiful woman. He’d never regret for a moment that he’d married her. He learned what vivacious meant by living in the warmth and passion she’d created, by breathing in her love and sharing her life. There was nothing to regret.

She was creative, and ambitious, and she made doing whatever it took to accomplish your goals attractive. Except for right now, when it was distinctly unfair to have let him walk back into this scene of familial bliss completely unprepared. Albus having a kip on her lap, cradled around her stomach as if it were some comfortable pillow inflated there just for him. James having a late snack, snuggled in beside her, little plate held securely in his little hands.

“Daddy, daddy, Look!” James lit up, face brightening in that humbling way children had when they were overjoyed to see you again.

The arm around his waist prevented the wiggling boy from escaping off the sofa. For which he compensated by wiggling all the faster.

Jamie waved around a miniature gray spoon, smaller even than his hands. His little perfect two-year-old hands. “I eating doose!” He announced.

“You are? That’s wonderful,” Harry’s voice was hoarse, as though he’d gone hours, not just minutes, with it unused. “Except you drink juice. You eat food. What kind of food are you eating?”

“Gape,” Jamie said, contemplating the round fruit he squeezed between two fingers. “I eating gapes.” Knowing his son, the boy was now weighing it to see if it’d make a nice missile, and if it would be nice enough of one to risk getting scolded for throwing his food.

Harry’s hands clenched at his sides, nails biting into the palms of his hands to stop him from running over there and swooping the boy up. He’d never let go if he hugged him now.

“Mum, can you give us a moment alone?” Ginny asked quietly and that was the first he’d even noticed Molly Weasley’s presence, so focused was he on drinking in the sight of his children, his wife. Auror training or no.

Molly rushed by him with barely a nod, and took the boys. Albus limply reclined in her arms, head gently pressed against her shoulder. James toddled away reluctantly, little hand swallowed whole by one of her own. “Bye bye, Daddy,” the boy said as he was pulled along. “See you.”

Harry stood rooted to the spot, watching as they rounded the corner and the door swung shut.

“How’ve you been?” Ginny folded her hands over her stomach protectively. He didn’t know what she was thinking here. So he did the only thing he could and told the truth.

“Not so alright, honestly.”

She nodded slightly; he watched the way her hands rose and fell with each breath. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“So have I,” Harry agreed softly.

“I want to try again and see how things go,” she stated, voice equally soft, “I think mum’s right. When you get married and have children, you make a commitment. To yourselves, to your children, and for the sake of that commitment, I’m willing to try again and see how it goes. I don’t know who the hell you are anymore, Harry Potter, but I’m willing to try. You can move back in.”

She watched him, measuring, and for the first time he realized where Jamie got that speculative look. That last sentence wasn’t finished, but he knew how it ended. You can move back in, she said, leaving off: it doesn’t really matter, you can always move back out.

And he thought of his son, sadly hopeful with his reluctant little “See you,” and he thought of the new baby and what it would be like to never know who would be where when, to never know who you could count on. He didn’t have to imagine too hard, he knew what that was like growing up with the Dursleys. And he thought how, when Jamie was born, he’d known that killing Voldemort wasn’t his purpose, prophecy or no. Loving and raising his children, that was his reason for being. He didn’t know what to do, so for the first time in his life he thought and rethought and silently thought it all over again.

“Ginny,” he finally said, “for the sake of the children, we can’t go back and forth on this.”

Her eyes narrowed, and her jaw tightened, imperceptibly if he hadn’t known exactly what it tasted like, or how smooth it felt rubbing against his chest, or the shape and feel of it with his eyes shut.

“What are you saying?” she asked, voice cold and sharp.

“I’m saying you have to be sure, you have to be completely sure this is what you want. That you want to try and you want me back.”

“You don’t want to move back in with us?”

“No, that’s not it! That’s—I love you, Gin. I love the children. I love the life we have together, I want that back more than anything. But I’m a father now, I can’t think about just me. It has to be about us, all of us, the children included. We have to think what’s best for them. And me moving in and out like that…that’s not best for them.”

She sat up slowly as he spoke. “And I’m their mother,” she intoned low. “I’d never do anything that would hurt them.”

“Ginny,” he said softly, “kicking me out hurt them.”

She flinched back as if he’d slapped her. Or worse, aimed a punch at her stomach, at their daughter by way of her. He knew it would hurt when he’d said it, but she needed to know how important a decision this was. He knew what it was like to question your own worth because your caregivers were inconsistent. She’d lived her entire life surrounded by love and understanding. She needed to know that giving that wasn’t a guarantee, it was something you worked for.

Her back said she didn’t know it any better now than she had a moment ago.

“You arse, how dare you throw that back in my face! Letting that little poofter bugger you, that’s what hurt us!”

“That was before they were born ! We weren’t even together, Ginevra, and I’m sorry but I don’t see anything wrong with two men together. I never knew you were such a bigoted mean-spirited-”

Her eyes said say it, Harry, say something I can’t forgive you for.

“What do you want me to do? I can’t change the past, I can’t-”

She exploded out of her seat, as she might have before Lily, hair falling around her in a mane of flashing red.

“I want you to go to those papers and tell them this is a lie! Tell them you’ve never done any of this disgusting, filthy shit!”

In the brown of her eyes, he saw Cornpike’s hazel. He saw Jamie ten years from now asking like Teddy would, “What did they mean when they called you a shirtlifter?” He heard Ron saying it was hereditary and saw Albus determinedly pushing out the words “if only one person didn’t hate me for who I loved” through Cornpike’s thin lips.

And he thought about Hermione saying he had a saving people thing, and thought again that …maybe that wasn’t so much of a compliment.

“Ginny, I can’t do that.”

Or at least…

Her eyes fluttered closed and her breath halted, for one long unending moment, before it began again. When she opened them, tears shone bright. And he knew what she was going to say. And he thought that at least, just for once…

“Then I want a divorce.”

…could he just concentrate of saving himself.

 

***+++***

 

(six years later)

“Dad...Dad, it’s, this is not what it looks like.” Jamie blinked wide brown eyes innocently, cradling in his arms a suspiciously clothed plant. Neville could probably identify it but the most Harry knew was something that large and leafy didn’t belong indoors. And if it had, it definitely wouldn’t be clothed in his youngest son’s favorite jumper.

Why would a plant be wearing…

Harry stared, eyes narrowed. “Albus? Is that—James, is your brother that potted plant?”

“Okay, so, there’s this spell…and Uncle George said—“

Harry held up a palm in the universally known gesture for ‘Stop right now, don’t say another word, you little miscreant.’ “Put him down – Gently!”

Jamie jumped, hands fumbling around the base of the plant, and hastily lowered the entire thing to the floor. He scooted back obediently at Harry’s gesture, staring wide-eyed as Harry withdrew his wand and pointed it at the potted plant formerly known as Albus Potter.

“Deletrius,” Harry pronounced.

From porcelain and rose thorns a little boy grew. Dark brown hair that in most lights looked black, but Harry could still see highlights of his mother’s red, round face that resembled Harry the way Harry resembled James before him. But the mouth, the mouth all Weasley.

“Al, are you okay?” He looked okay, but who knew what kind of psychological damage turning into an inanimate object could do to a seven-year-old?

Al looked down at himself, hands patting all over, chest to thighs. Then he announced, quite firmly: “That was sooo cool. Jamie, we have to do it again!”

Little boys were indestructible fools. He didn’t know how Molly did it. Six of them. Christ. He couldn’t manage two. Once upon a time he’d depended on her help. He always knew he’d miss that if he hadn’t had it, he just never knew how much. She never forgave him for the divorce, though he could never be sure if it were the actual divorce or the fact he was bisexual that caused her most grief.

“You most certainly will not do it again! James Sirius Potter, I can’t believe you –“

Harry cut off at the sight of his son. Jamie stood hunched in the corner, eyes partially squeezed shut, hands balled in fists, and clearly bracing himself for the yelling that would come. He had them on weekends and rotated holidays. It wasn’t nearly enough and he couldn’t bear to waste that time with fear and sadness. “Your brother isn’t for experiments, no matter how much he likes it, okay?” Harry continued in a sigh.

A happy smile tentatively formed on his eldest’s face. “Okay, dad. I won’t do it again.”

Right. Harry was tempted to add, ‘at least wait until you’re back at your mother’s’ but that would be unconscionably evil. He didn’t want Al to be a potted plant at any time. Still, he had to bite his lip to keep it in.

Weekends and rotating holidays. It wasn’t nearly enough. But at least it was better than when Elizabeth was an infant. With her red curls and brilliant green years, he still privately referred to his sweet little girl as Lily, but Ginny had made sure her birth papers read Elizabeth Mathilda Weasley-Potter. She would have dropped the ‘Potter’ altogether if she could, and changed the boys’ names. But wizard law required the father’s consent for those types of things. It was one of the few times he was thankful wizard law tended to be stuck in the dark ages. Actually, all subsequent times involved their divorce too.  

“Your sister’s having a bite, are you two hungry?” Harry didn’t know why he bothered; as long as it wasn’t veggies of any sort, both boys were walking dustbins, they’d consume anything in a three mile radius. “If you finish it all, it’s Fortescue’s after.”

Jamie and Al made a collective squealing noise of happiness and raced to join Elizabeth—Lily in the kitchen.

His beautiful, wonderful children. They were five, seven, and nine now. He couldn’t believe how quickly time had passed. Christ, Teddy was seventeen! He’d be leaving Hogwarts this year. Harry, of course, wouldn’t be attending his post-Hogwarts celebration. Andromeda hadn’t let him see much of the boy after that first article, and it wasn’t until Teddy was old enough travel on his own that he’d begun visiting again. Harry wasn’t going to ruin Teddy’s day by being where he wasn’t wanted.

That seemed to be his motto lately.

When it became obvious that people would prefer being mauled half to death rather than being saved by him, he finally quit his job. Kingsley hadn’t been very pleased, but he was probably the only one. The insubordination in the office wasn’t nearly as bad as the disgust and distrust in their eyes.

What was the point in helping when your help was not wanted? Hermione said he was living a half-life and she worried for him, but she’d never been able to understand that. With her S.P.E.W.

He never wanted to be a saviour to begin with, he definitely wasn’t going to do it when no one else wanted it either.

And yes, it got tiresome, gardening and writing and reading the same stuff over and over again.

And yes, it was isolating when half the Weasleys weren’t speaking to him because they thought he was grotesque, and the other half weren’t speaking to him because they were afraid to betray Gin.

And of course he missed having someone to hold, and touch, and love, and argue with, and fuck. Yes.

But his children were happy, and safe, and arguing amongst themselves in his kitchen. That was all that mattered.

 

***+++***

 

The children were told Ginny was re-marrying on a Friday morning, and Harry was not sure who was more shocked, them or him. It was not that he hadn’t known she was dating: a fit, blond, entirely heterosexual male from a pureblood family that had relocated to Switzerland during the first war. He couldn’t pronounce the man’s name, and only knew about him at all because his children were fiercely loyal and therefore couldn’t stand the “sod.”

Albus took it especially hard. Al was always the quieter of his three, a little shyer, a little slower to warm up, a little more sensitive.

He turned positively sullen.

Harry secretly suspected the boy was maintaining fantasies of Harry one day being let back in the house like some recalcitrant dog, finally forgiven. His head hung so low that entire night and into the next day that Harry was tempted to ask if he was trying to tempt his brother into transfiguring him into a broom this time.

But he couldn’t. It was sad, and it broke his heart, and allowing it to continue for one moment longer would go against everything Harry had spent the last six years fighting for. So. He took them to the park.

Not the local one. The local one was frequented by a bunch of bigoted arsewipes who wouldn’t let his children play with theirs when he was around. They weren’t the kind of neighbors to stare, or whisper, or shout obscenities. His house was never vandalised, his garden never torched. They were just extremely good at minding their business and leaving you to your own affairs. At thirty-four, Harry could deal with that; his children were under ten, they shouldn’t have to.

He gave them two treats, the rare group portkey (Harry might not be an Auror anymore but he still had contacts) and a trip halfway across the country to a park that functioned like it should: children played.

It was here that the fog cleared and Harry finally realized he’d been living a half-life not for the past six years, but the past thirty-three.

 

***+++***

 

At first everything was fine. They’d perked up on the ride over. The little nutters actually enjoyed traveling by portkey and that nauseating stomach roiling feeling that went along with it. Harry swallowed his discomfort and squealed along with them. When they arrived, he left Al and James to negotiate the monkey bars, the chattering primates helpfully swinging the boys from one bar to the next with gentle little flicks of their tail. Harry was led off by Ellie, her red curls bouncing as she ran towards the swings, crying over her shoulder, “Hurry, daddy, you have to push me high.” They were the only family out today, and in some ways that was better than having company.

It all went pear-shaped by the train tunnel. Ellie pumped her legs hard, pulling herself higher and higher in the air while Harry watched on encouragingly. She hadn’t yet stored up courage enough to detach the chains and allow herself to hover in mid-air, but he clearly remembered a time when she had been too terrified to even get on the seat, full stop. He was proud of her.

Then there was a scream, sharp, shrill, distinctly angry with undertones of “I can’t get my way” which was all that kept Harry’s heart from leaping out of his throat. He stopped Elizabeth with a quick wave of his wand and a one-word command, grabbed her by the hand, which turned into an upwards swing into his arms, and marched rapidly in the direction of the scream before the owner of that yell had opportunity to draw in a second breath.

To say he was shocked to find both his sons wrapped around the diminutive body of some third child, throwing punches while the other boy shrieked and flailed would be an understatement.

Upon further investigation – dragging all three children apart by various limbs, Harry realized James wasn’t throwing punches at all: he was trying to wrestle Al off of the other child, a slight blond doing his level best to headbutt Al and remain in clawing distance.

Ellie bounced and shrieked where Harry’d placed her, and between her shrieks and the boys’ Harry felt his ears would be ringing for days.

“What the f—what on earth are you doing?” He got grunts and shrieks for an answer, limbs still flailing, bodies still squirming. Harry had to pull Al from the ground and hold him aloft to get him to quit swinging.

And even then an unfortunate elbow collided with his face on the way up, his glasses went flying, and stars burst behind his eyes. Harry dropped Albus back to the ground as gently as he could manage while clutching his nose, and was positively mortified when James was forced to tackle his brother from behind to keep him from launching his wiry little body at the other child again.

This…was not Albus Severus Potter. This was some kind of beast.

The blond rushed forward, teeth bared, and Harry was preparing to launch them both into mid-air with a well placed Mobilicorpus, when finally a second adult voice interjected and the vicious little blond was named: “Scorpius! What's going on?!”

Scorpius halted immediately, stock still. “He hit me,” he yelled, punctuating his exclamation with a jab of his fist.

Albus scrambled out from under James, half his body still trapped by the weight of his older brother. “He bit me!”

“He kicked dirt in my face and tried to blind me!”

“I did not! If he wasn’t squirming so much and took his thrashing like a man, I wouldn’t have kicked up any dirt!”

“Ha! You’re a cheating cheater who cheats and you tried to blind me!”

“Liar!”

“And you broke Morty!”

“You called my mum a slapper!”

“My dad calls my mum that all the time. I wasn’t insulting you, you plebe!”

Albus blinked and finally stopped wiggling away from James with a tiny “oh.”

If this was all a misunderstanding because one man couldn’t watch his tongue around his own child, Harry was going to be very, very aggravated in a second.

“James,” he said as calmly as he could manage, “What happened?”

“Oh sure,” Scorpius piped up, “that’s fair. Ask plebe senior to explain. Dad, it’s a gang-up!” There was something about this entire situation that was very familiar, and if Harry could just get his ears to stop ringing, his nose to stop burning, and find his glasses...he was sure he could figure out what that was.

“Scorpius, I honestly don’t want to hear another word right now. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you not to run off, and talking to strangers at that?” The man sounded as familiar as the child, and Harry wondered if he’d met them both before. Maybe they were friends of Ginny’s and visited his children sometimes?

“Much less brawling,” the man continued. “Can we please give it another five years? You’re six years old!”

Ellie has stopped shrieking, Harry couldn’t hear any more wrigglings from either James or Albus, and Scorpius was entirely silent. Harry hadn’t gotten instant results without yelling since they were toddlers. Whoever the man was, Harry needed to hire him.

“Oh for bloody --Potter! Your specs are beneath your clumsy feet, you’re getting ready to squash the damn things, look down, would you?”  

Despite the words, Harry’s “bloody specs” were slid onto his face, and his hair was shoved surprisingly gently off his face, clearing his line of vision. And Draco Malfoy came into focus.

“Malfoy,” Harry said in shock.

Malfoy smirked, that self-same annoying smirk he had all those years ago in school. “Potter.”

Harry tilted his head towards the little boy standing behind Malfoy, and now that he could see again, and now that they were not all entangled and flailing…he could see Scorpius Malfoy was the spitting image of his father, pointy features and all. “Your son, I presume.”

Malfoy nodded slightly, a single up and down motion, and with smirk in place responded, “Your brood?”

 

***+++***

When they settled everything out, it appeared that Scorpius Malfoy had the same social tactics as his father before him. And dear, sweet, quiet, sensitive little Albus Potter did indeed have his own father’s temper.

In the end they forced the two boys to do what no one had demanded of them: apologies and hugs. The last was pressed by Harry because he’d figured out three years ago, the only way his three ever forgot a row was if he forced them to do something sweet for the other. “I’m sorry, here, have a cookie” worked just as well as “I’m sorry, here, have a hug.” Malfoy rose an eyebrow but didn’t protest, the boys hugged, and apologies were exchanged.

Then Scorpius demanded a replacement Morty the Merman for the one Albus had broken in a fit of temper. And he wouldn’t settle for a repairing spell.

With a sigh, when it was apparent that Malfoy wasn’t going to help, Harry promised to buy another action figure as soon as possible. Then Scorpius demanded it be hand - delivered to ensure its safe arrival, and Malfoy’s smirk broke into a genuine grin that screamed of paternal pride. It reminded Harry of Malfoy’s parents…only without that creep factor they had about them. Happier somehow, freer.

To be honest, Harry had to admire a six-year-old that could negotiate so well despite being in “trouble for ages,” as his father had pronounced shortly before apologies began.

They decided to meet up the following afternoon for the hand-off. Malfoy’s grin grew exponentially as Harry gathered his br—children, prepared to leave, and loosed the farewell: “Happy hunting.”

He forgot about it until the next day, because when they arrived home, Albus immediately broke into tears: Thick, frame-shaking sobs that made his lips tremble and his eyes appear twice their normal size. Which set Elizabeth off, nearly undid Harry himself, which in turn made James blink suspiciously. “Sorry I hit him, daddy,” Albus pressed out through sobs, “he just made me so mad, and I hate mummy, and I hate Matteo, and I hate not living with you and---”

Harry sank to the ground and pulled all three into his arms. Ellie on his right shoulder, Al beneath his chin and Jamie on his left, folded into him and safe. “It’s okay, it’s okay to cry. You don’t have to hate mummy, she loves you and I love you and everything will be fine, I promise.”

They stayed there like that until all three fell asleep. Harry tucked them each in their own beds, and he wished not for the first time…that it didn’t feel like he had to do this alone.

 

***+++***  

The following day they returned to their mother.

 

Harry spent the whole time after they left searching for a nonexistent Morty the Merman action figure.

 

When he’d arrived at the Three Broomsticks, sleep-deprived, annoyed, and distinctly lacking that particular child’s toy only to find Malfoy looking _distinctly_ the opposite of all those…Harry sighed, hand already reaching for the back of his neck and rubbing uncomfortably. “I’m not nearly pissed enough to do this.”

 

He approached the bartender before joining Malfoy and bought four drinks in lieu of one toy.

 

Sliding them in front of him, Malfoy knocked two back easily. When he was done, he leaned a little closer, smelling of summer sun and warm things, and touched Harry gently on the forearm with one extended fingertip. “Just so you know, Morty is a rare collector’s item. Took me three months and five thousand galleons to secure him in the first place. The original is now delightfully reassembled and comfortably ensconced in the embrace of its six-year-old owner as we speak.” Malfoy paused to gulp at another drink, without a by your leave or even a ‘have one will you, Potter,’ and then he continued. “Scorpius let me fix it as soon as you’d left. I don’t think he really cared if it was new at all, the whole point was to inconvenience you a little in punishment, I think.” Malfoy’s face brightened, and his eyes lit up, the lightest of blue that they almost looked gray. “My child has a very sophisticated sense of humor.”

 

Sophisticated. That would be one word. Half-laughing, Harry asked, “What the hell are you raising?”

 

The Malfoy of old would have taken offense at that and Harry nearly winced when it was out of his mouth. The Malfoy of new apparently had a more forgiving nature. “A clever little boy, unashamed to speak his mind. Or to dole out justice, should the occasion arise. Same as you.”

 

The final drink “These are really good,” he said. His eyes were looking a little heavy, his smile turning a little lazy, and his voice had a breathier quality than it did when Harry had first sat down.

 

“It’s the special of the day for a reason, I suppose.”

 

Malfoy murmured something along the lines of “Mmm.” Harry’s eyes were drawn to the subtle flush that rose along Malfoy’s collarbone.

 

By smile that remained lazy and relaxed, clearly Malfoy wasn’t aware Harry was watching. And if this situation got any odder, Harry was going to have to rethink this entire meeting. He hadn’t seen Malfoy since the end of the battle of Hogwarts. Not in person, and not in newspapers in the past six years as he’d been avoiding those pretty vehemently.

 

As far as he knew, Malfoy had made a life of staying off the radar. He’d married quietly to the sister of Daphne Greengrass, who was apparently a slapper. He’d obviously had one child, and that was as far as Harry’s information went.

 

The little more obvious but much less helpful fact of Malfoy aging very well…well, that was beside the point.

 

Malfoy’s pupils were beginning to look a little dilated now, light blue turning gray turned black…

 

“It’s warm in here,” Malfoy stated, tugging a little at the collar of his robes. Just slightly as if he couldn’t stop himself though he wanted. His fingers brushed insistently at the patch of pinked skin Harry couldn’t stop staring at.

 

It wasn’t warm at all.

 

“You’re not pissed, are you? Those were four small drinks and ciders barely have any alcohol in them anyway.”

 

Malfoy’s lazy smile burned off his face, and his dilating pupils stared through him. “Potter, you idiot, why do you think Wizards are so fond of _pumpkin_ juice?” He asked it sweetly but his voice was hard.

 

Before Harry could ask how that related, Malfoy was standing, in one sweeping motion. “Because it’s one of the few fruits when distilled and liquefied that does not interact with magic to act as an aphrodisiac.

 

“Now, I know I’m attractive,” he went on, “but most ask before poisoning me with a sexual stimulant.”

 

And then finally, when Harry was feeling out of his depth and shell-shocked, Draco said: “Potter, this is your fault. Let’s fuck.”

 

***+++***

Harry wasn’t entirely sure when he’d said yes, because apparently he did say yes, nor was he sure how they’d made it back to Malfoy’s flat. Which…it seemed he had all to himself as he and his wife were separated (which explained the slapper comment, really). And Harry had never imagined himself with Malfoy, never in all the years they’d known each other. Nor had he pictured himself with any male, not in a good long while.

 

But now that these things were true…he couldn’t imagine anything else.

 

Malfoy lay naked underneath him. Harry had lost all his clothes too somewhere between pub and flat, and with all that flesh spread open and flushed beneath him…he had no idea where to start.

 

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” Harry admitted.

 

Malfoy’s hips stilled. Breath caught in his throat. “What exactly do you mean by that? Are you a—“ here Draco’s voice lowered to a whisper like he was about to spit out some horribly offensive word not for the ears of gentle souls, “ _virgin_?“

 

Harry blinked. “I have three children. How on earth do you figure?”

 

“New to homosexual--”

 

“My wife divorced me for sleeping with men. Again, how on earth do you figure?”

 

Malfoy’s already flushed skin turned redder still, from the base of his throat to the top of his chest. He half rose, eyes squinty and assessing. “How am I supposed to know? Your cock is practically up my arse and all of a sudden you’re _stopping_ and saying such shit like you don’t know what you’re doing—what am I supposed to think? And quit interrupting me, Potter, it’s a filthy habit. ”

 

It was surprisingly cute. And really sexy. Malfoy hadn’t stopped panting for a moment.

 

“Look. If you’re not a virgin, and you’re not in the middle of some sort of moral crisis, I’d really appreciate it if you shut up and get on with it. I’m feeling incredibly randy and if I don’t have a cock in me in the next few seconds, something is going to die a messy, inconvenient, _unimaginably_ painful death.”

 

“And if I were?”

 

Malfoy looked confused and a little helpless. “What?” That was cute too.

 

“In the middle of a moral crisis.”

 

Malfoy rolled out from under him, shoving him away a lot harder than Harry thought necessary.

 

“Wait, I was kidding, Malfoy, it was a joke.”

 

“It was singularly un-amusing. You have one last chance, Potter. I’m going to count to ten, and if you don’t have some part of your anatomy inside some part of mine by the time I’m done? I’m going home to bugger myself silly with – mmff”

 

Mouth to mouth, Harry slid his tongue across Malfoy’s. He tasted sweet and warm like the cider he’d been drinking. Harry could feel the tingle on his lips and imagined that was what Malfoy was feeling through his whole body. A pulsating lightning just faint enough to stimulate without pain, stroking across his tongue, making his lips feel slightly swollen. When Malfoy moaned and sucked on his lower lip…it felt more sensitive than normal.

 

Of course it’d also been six long lonely years since he’d had sex…

 

They separated and Malfoy whimpered at the loss, eyes closed, blindly seeking Harry’s tongue back with his own.

 

Now that was definitely cute and hot. Celibacy or no.

 

Harry lay back on the bed, legs akimbo. “Go on then,” Harry laughed, “have at it.”

 

***+++***

 

The next morning Harry woke to the sound of rustling. Trousers fastening, clothes adjusted. Harry opened one eye, squinting against the bright light of midmorning. He hadn’t slept that long in ages. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in ages.

 

Draco looked like what he imagined an angel would, warm and golden in the sunshine.

 

He stopped moving and let his head fall back a little. “I know you’re awake, Potter. Going to lie there and stare, or are you going to see me off?”

 

He turned around and there was a grin on his face. The bright one, the one that lit from within.

 

“You know, I never pictured myself here,” Harry said. Because it was true and for once in the past six years he felt comfortable enough to share the truth with another adult. Not to say he’d been lying for six years and some…he hadn’t, but he’d felt a nervous wreck each time he hadn’t.

 

He’d felt plunged in darkness the last few years, feeling around blindly, eyes impossibly wide but depending on his fingers to guide him. Physically capable of seeing, but unable. Last night, Draco in his arms…it felt like being given back shadows. Not full sight, but something there, something around the edges.

 

Draco, who had become Draco some time in the night and would probably never be Malfoy again, sat down beside him. “I have,” he admitted quietly. “For a long time.”

 

Draco sighed and slid back down, rolling back into Harry, mirroring the way they’d held each other last night in the dark.

 

“After the war, so much had been lost, so much taken. Yes, of course, I still had my money, my house, my parents. But peace of mind? Visions for the future? A bloody fucking wand?

 

Those dissipated with the Dark Lord. Voldemort. Voldemort. The tosser’s dead, if I _still_ can’t say the name, what was the point in the last few years? Except there was Astoria. But Astoria was something to do to pass the time as all good little heirs would. And when I had my own heir, we lost all interest in each other. She was never…brave enough, bloody-minded enough, aggravating enough, kind and generous and clever enough.” Draco ran his hand down Harry’s face in one long stroking caress. “And her hair wasn’t the right shade.”

 

When he was silent and it was clear he wasn’t going to be speaking again, they lay there just looking for endless moments.

 

“I don’t want last night to be a one-off,” Harry finally blurted. “I want to do this again.”

 

“Why, Potter, are you asking me on a date?”

 

“Yes. Do you accept?”

 

Harry’s breath held in his throat with anticipation. That stupid useless kind that made your heart thump a little faster, your lungs pump a little harder, even though the silent mantra of “don’t hope, don’t hope, don’t hope” repeated on the skipping soundtrack of your mind. He knew better. And yet. There it was.

 

Draco’s eyes went soft, “I’d be a fool to say no. I don’t know what we have in store for us in the future but I’d like to see. I don’t know if I’d ever have felt brave enough to approach you on my own, but here we are.”

 

“Serendipitous.”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing. Vocabulary word for the kids. ”

 

Draco did that brow-crinkly thing he was fond of, though it made him look like a confused mole. “I know what it means,” he said, “I just don’t know what you mean by it.”

 

Harry kissed his brow smooth and smiled. “Serendipitous,” he explained, “despite everything, finding where you’re meant to be in the end. Just thought it fit.”

 

He wouldn’t remember until their third wedding anniversary (after ten years together homosexual marriage was finally ratified into law) that he’d been drinking apple cider his whole life. By then he’d never been more grateful for a lie.

 

The End.


End file.
